Hacker News Reader

Comment by adaml_623 | Hacker News Reader

That section on negative numbers seems incomplete. It doesn't indicate how you write negative numbers instead talks about how normal binary computers use twos complement.

Edit: I think I was assuming you'd only use 4 bit or 8 bit values with this notation.

View on HN

As far as I can see the section on negative numbers was completely made up, or at least it is not sourced in the system's patent. The encoding was mostly defined as a way to transmit (and write down) binary data in nibbles (groups of 4 bits), it does not really concern itself with what that data encodes.

The one thing it does support which the wiki does not note, is a run-length encoding: if a syllable ends in R, then the segment until the next R is interpreted as a positive integer and a repetition count so HORBAR is 05 (5 repetitions of 0), and DIRHAHOR is 1516 (16 repetitions of a fully set nibble).

And of course I forgot about HN's shitty markup and didn't notice before the edition timer ran out.

HORBAR is repeat(0x0, count=5)

DIRHAHOR is repeat(0xF, count=16)

Also in script form this is written as a strange parenthetical. Strange because the repeated nibble gets an open paren "stuck" to it, like a tail. So repeated nibbles don't look much like their base form.

Indeed the section on negative numbers is bullshit. One's or two's complement representation only works with fixed-length numbers. Arbitrary-length numbers would need an infinite number of leading 1 digits.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com